Motivation Gene expression data from high-throughput assays, such as microarray, are often used to predict cancer survival. However, available datasets consist of a small number of samples (n patients) and a large number of gene expression data (p predictors). Therefore, the main challenge is to cope with the high-dimensionality, i.e. p>>n, and a novel appealing approach is to use screening procedures to reduce the size of the feature space to a moderate scale (Wu & Yin 2015, Song et al. 2014, He et al. 2013).

In this study, we investigated by in silico analysis the possible correlation between microRNAs (miRNAs) and Anamnia V-SINEs (a superfamily of short interspersed nuclear elements), which belong to those retroposon families that have been preserved in vertebrate genomes for millions of years and are actively transcribed because they are embedded in the 3? untranslated region (UTR) of several genes. We report the results of the analysis of the genomic distribution of these mobile elements in zebrafish (Danio rerio) and discuss their involvement in generating miRNA gene loci.

In this paper we study the effect of rare mutations, driven by a marked point process, on the evolutionary behavior of a population. We derive a Kolmogorov equation describing the expected values of the different frequencies and prove some rigorous analytical results about their behavior. Finally, in a simple case of two different quasispecies, we are able to prove that the rarity of mutations increases the survival opportunity of the low fitness species.

An integro-differential model for evolutionary dynamics with mutations is investigated by improving the understanding of its behaviour using numerical simulations. The proposed numerical approach can handle also density dependent fitness, and gives new insights about the role of mutation in the preservation of cooperation.

The turning circle maneuver of a self-propelled tanker like ship model is numerically simulated through the integration of the unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (uRaNS) equations coupled with the equations of the motion of a rigid body. The solution is achieved by means of the unsteady RANS solver ?navis developed at CNR-INSEAN. The focus here is on the analysis of the maneuvering behavior of the ship with two different stern appendages configurations; namely, a twin screw with a single rudder and a twin screw, twin rudder with a central skeg.

Hydrogel composite membranes (HCMs) are used as novel mineralization platforms for the bioinspired synthesis of CaCO3 superstructures. A comprehensive statistical analysis of experimental results revealed quantitative relationships between crystallization conditions and crystal texture and the strong selectivity toward complex morphologies when monomers bearing carboxyl and hydroxyl groups are used together in the hydrogel synthesis in HCMs.

We introduce a new class of finite differences schemes to approximate one dimensional dissipative semilinear hyperbolic systems with a BGK structure. Using precise analytical time-decay estimates of the local truncation error, it is possible to design schemes, based on the standard upwind approximation, which are increasingly accurate for large times when approximating small perturbations of constant asymptotic states. Numerical tests show their better performances with respect to those of other schemes.

The accurate segmentation of the optic disc (OD) offers an important cue to extract other retinal features in an automated diagnostic system, which in turn will assist ophthalmologists to track many retinopathy conditions such as glaucoma. Research contributions regarding the OD segmentation is on the rise, since the design of a robust automated system would help prevent blindness, for instance, by diagnosing glaucoma at an early stage and a condition known as ocular hypertension.

We consider Volterra integral equations on time scales and present our study about the long time behavior of their solutions. We provide sufficient conditions for the stability and investigate the convergence properties when the kernel of the equations vanishes at infinity.